


We Could Be Heroes

by LeeMorrigan



Category: We Can Be Heroes
Genre: Christmas Morning, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, and preview, and synopsis of an upcoming movie, capes, inspired by the first photos, puppy, spy kids - Freeform, super heroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:20:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27601294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeeMorrigan/pseuds/LeeMorrigan
Summary: Missy Moreno is a little girl whose dad just happens to be a super hero. What happens when aliens kidnap her father and his entire team of super heroes one morning, shortly before Christmas? The kids get together and save their super hero parents from aliens, that's what.
Relationships: Marcus Moreno & Team, Missy Moreno & Marcus Moreno
Kudos: 10





	We Could Be Heroes

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously, I've never seen the movie cause it's not out yet and there isn't even a trailer at this point. I was inspired by one of the photos, the synopsis, and a conversation on Discord.
> 
> Triggers: Mind-reading with & without consent, kidnapping, aliens threatening children, someone gets threatened with being dissected by lasers, counter-torture techniques, being electrocuted, being held prisoner, falling from great heights, a car accident where a parent died is mentioned.

Missy leapt from the school bus and slid a little on the thin layer of snow covering the sidewalk. Today was it! The last day of school before her two-week Christmas break.

Missy was especially excited because her dad had promised they would spend her whole break together. He was going to do his best to duck calls from his boss, which was no small feat when your job was being a superhero. The last four Christmases, he had been unable to get more than 12hrs at a time, without having to leave to take care of something.

This year was going to be different. This year, they were going to bake cookies, sing carols, have a snowball fight, build snowmen, and maybe make a pie if her dad was feeling adventurous. Last year he tried to make a pie at Thanksgiving and got called away for work but forgot to mention to Missy’s sitter about the pie.

Missy walked with her friends, Aggie and Celia, down the street. Aggie’s house was first, but her mom always drove Celia and Missy back to their houses if the weather was bad. Considering they could see Aggie’s mom waiting with a smile by her Jeep, she must have thought it was cold enough to warrant taking them by car.

Mrs.Collins waved at them before opening up the back passenger side door on her purple jeep. She helped them load their backpacks in as she asked about their days and their plans for break.

“How was the day? Did you guys do anything fun?”

Celia nodded, excitedly.

“We made 3D snowmen in art class. Missy’s won first prize and mine won a tie for third.”

“My art class made marshmellow snowmen on cardboard that was supposed to look like a graham cracker.”, Aggie added.

Aggie was in a morning art class, Celia and Missy had afternoon art class because they both also had music while Aggie had choir.

“Missy, do you and your papa have plans for Christmas? If he’s going to be busy this year, you’re more than welcome to stay over with us.”

“Oh, he’s going to try to take off the whole break this year. He told his bosses he didn’t want pulled in for anything short of averting a world war.”

“Good for him!”, Mrs.Collins cheered.

They got to Celia’s parents’ house. It was so decorated that Celia joked that they could see it from Mars. Celia older brother, Luka, was home from college and came running down the driveway to greet her. Celia almost flew out of the car while Aggie and Missy chuckled.

“Hey, Ceecee! Come here!”

Mrs.Collins waived and asked him about school, before giving him instructions to make he and Celia hot chocolate. Missy kind of loved how Mrs.Collins just mom-ed everyone. It was also funny how different Mrs.Collins and Aggie looked, with Mrs.Collin’s wild, black mane and her pale brown eyes being nothing like Aggie’s straight, blue-black hair and black eyes. They both had huge, dimpled smiles though that reminded Missy of her papa’s dimpled smile.

“Alright, over the river and through the woods, to Missy’s house we go!”, she teased.

“Can Missy come over one day?”, Aggie asked her mom.

“If she and her papa aren’t too busy.”

“We could both come over, maybe. I’ll ask.”

Mrs.Collins agreed, even pointing out that one day they would be making cookies to donate to a local soup kitchen’s Christmas dinner. Missy figured she and her papa might come over and help with that, if he did manage to keep his promise about staying away from work this Christmas.

As they came down to the last house at the end of the lane, Missy saw her papa walking down from the front porch. He waved both hands at the three of them in the car, his smile wide. Mrs.Collins rolled down her window as she pulled into the driveway, and started being a Mom.

“Marcus, where is your coat? Or gloves, hat?”

He smiled sheepishly up at her, standing there in a plaid shirt and black jeans, no hat, scarf, gloves, or jacket. Missy would even bet he was wearing his short slip-on boots with no socks.

“Sorry, Jess. I saw you coming through the window and just was so excited to see my favorite girl, I forgot all about the cold.”

Missy beamed as she unbuckled and her papa got the door for her. Aggie handed Missy her backpack with a promise of a match on their one online game they played together. Mrs.Collins and Aggie pulled off, waving and wishing Missy and her papa a Merry Christmas.

“Well, kiddo, what do we do first? Cookies, build a snowman, or hot chocolate and Christmas movies?”

“Snowmen!”

Her papa smiled brightly at her, still holding her hand.

“Alright, let’s get you into your boots, I’ll get a coat, and we’ll build ourselves an army worthy of songs and legends.”

“You’re such a geek.”

“I’ll have you know, dear daughter, I am THEE Geek.”

Missy laughed as she went into the house with her papa. This Christmas was going to be one to remember. She was sure of it.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Marcus was halfway through making a batch of peanut butter cookies with peanut butter chips when his pager went off. It wasn’t really a pager so much as a leach to yank whenever he was needed to join the team and go save the world, or at least a city. Marcus didn’t even look at the pager before he was growling.

Pulling out his phone, he found Irina looking back at him. If he was the team leader, she was like M from the Bond movies. One part mentor, one part boss, one part den mother. She was also old enough to remember where she had been when Kennedy was assassinated but looked like she might have been 40.

“Irina, you promised me, nothing shy of WWIII.”

“This is just as bad.”

“I just wanted one Christmas with Missy. I haven’t spent a whole break with her, since before her mom died. You gave me your word.”

Irina didn’t give much away with her poker face, but Marcus had known her long enough to recognize the regretful look in her dark black-brown eyes.

“I’m sorry, Moreno. If I didn’t have to, I wouldn’t. Neela and Ferdinand are busy in Costa Rica, Tabitha is under water right now, and everyone except you and Billy are all handling those two issues in South America. It’ll be quick, and you can teleport right back into your living room when you’re done.”

“Give me a sec to call Mrs.Collins and tell Missy.”

Irina nodded.

“I will see you in 45.”

Marcus nodded before clicking off. He let out a long sigh as he let his head fall back. He had promised.

“Papa?”

He turned to see Missy coming down the steps from her room. Their basement had a door down to his ‘lair’ as his late wife had called it, then the ground floor, and the upstairs that had a bedroom, bath, and little sitting room, then the guest room. Aside from the guest room, it was Missy’s abode. He had wanted her to have a space all her own, from the moment she came home from the hospital.

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

She eyed him. Those dark eyes and her head tilted slightly to the right, with her forehead tipped forward. It was Elaina, one hundred percent.

“You’re leaving.”

“How’d you know?”

She raised an eyebrow as she looked like she might shake her head at him. Sometimes he swore she was her mom’s clone.

“You called me ‘sweetheart’. When do you have to go?”

“As soon as Mrs.Collins can get here.”

“I’ll text Aggie, go ahead and get dressed.”

“Are you sure?”, he asked as he walked over to where she stood.

“Yeah. I mean, it’s gotta be averting world war three, right?”

Marcus nodded as he moved down to hug his girl.

“How did I get so lucky to have such a smart, caring daughter?”

He felt her chuckle a little against his chest.

“Go get ready.”

“Yes, angel.”

He headed down to the basement, then his lair, while Missy texted Mrs.Collins. He hated that he had to do this, except there was no helping it. Some days he really, really hated being a super hero.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

In the conference room with Billy, Moreno wanted to strangle their co-leader in the field, Ferdinand. Ferdinand and Neela had been married almost 20 years and had three children, all of whom had developed powers that made it clear they would follow in their parents’ footsteps. And right now, over a video chat, Ferdinand was bragging while they waited for Neela to finish up with Irina.

“Our boy, Charlie, his powers are identical to mine. It’ll be so good to have him on the team, here in a couple more years. We can tag-team villains left and right.”

Moreno whipped his head to face the large screen taking up half the wall of the office he and Billy were sharing.

“He’s 15, Ferdy. FIFTEEN! You do not take children into the field.”

“He’ll be driving by then, I’d hardly call him a child.”

“You can’t make him be responsible for life and death decisions, with super powers and innocent lives counting on him, when he’s a kid! I will not allow you to put him in the field.”

“Allow? Who died and make you El Presidente?”

Billy stepped in, aware that Ferdinand had a thing about poking Munroe with bad imitations of Spanish.

“Alright, neutral corners guys. Y’all can fight after the ladies are back to deal with you.”

“Oh come on, Billy, grow up.”, Ferdinand growled.

Moreno nodded to Billy. The kid was the newest recruit, barely a year into the whole super hero gig. He had the ability to turn his whole body into a form of organic rock and as such, was called Rock Solid. As names went, Moreno thought it was pretty stupid. Although Ferdinand was able to turn into a bird, so Moreno had been calling him Ferdy-Birdy for nearly twenty years.

“So, Missy showing any abilities yet? That the real reason you don’t want the second generation on the team, cause yours is ineligible?”, Ferdinand goaded.

Before Billy could step in or cut the feed, Moreno whipped around to face the screen and Billy was very glad Moreno had fantastic control over his teleporting abilities.

“Look, Ferdy, you might have to have you children be reflections of you for them to be worthy of your notice, in your own, twisted mind- but my daughter is spectacular. She’s amazing. Powers or no powers. In fact, I’d prefer she never develop powers so she can grow up to have a happy, healthy, normal, safe life. The life none of us will ever have.”

“Why would you want her to be boring?”

Billy could see the fire roar up in Moreno’s dark eyes. His voice was low and dangerous as he spoke to Ferdinand.

“My daughter deserves the best, she deserves to be safe and happy. She’s the best thing I ever had a hand in, and I’ll be damned if I will let anyone imply she’s anything less than amazing just because she doesn’t shoot lasers out of her eyeballs or turn into a bird-brained show off.”

Irina, with her spectacular timing, appeared with Neela appearing on the other end of the video chat to shove her husband away from the camera. Neela also had a shapeshifting ability, although hers allowed her to turn into a cat. There were days when Billy half-wanted to see her pounce her husband and make his tiny, bird-life flash before his beady, bird eyes.

“Alright, mission requires Billy and Moreno to hit a spot in Rome to investigate this weird landing. No worthwhile intel except for when it landed, what it looks like, and that it has scrambled the communication for everything within a ten mile radius. Could be that radical environmental group again, or it could be the guy who is trying to turn all TVs into mind-reading machines. He did escape his prison last month, and four weeks is enough time for him to make this much trouble.”

“What about us?”, Ferdinand asked through the speakers.

“You and Neela will hover nearby, in case Moreno and Billy need back up. They are going to investigate for two hours tops. If you don’t hear anything from them by then, or hear otherwise from me, you’ll go in after them and make sure they get home. Copy?”

“Copy.”

“Good. Now, everyone has their assignments, off you go. Good luck.”

Moreno headed over to the area he used for teleporting. Billy had taken to calling it the Transporter Room, but the idea was that it was able to be closed off so if Moreno wasn’t the only teleporter or if he brought something with him, the threat could be stopped at the door and not permitted any further into Irina’s spacious hideout for them.

“Ready?”, Moreno asked as he reached, stopping just shy of holding Billy’s shoulder.

“Let’s rock’n’roll.”, he teased with a bad pun.

“I thought I was the one who was supposed to make the dad-jokes.”

Billy just smiled as his boss grasped his shoulder and away they went.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Missy had gotten a brief message from Irina, explaining the mission had gone overtime and as-such, she would be sending a car to pick Missy up from Mrs.Collins’s house. Missy made her excuses to Aggie and Mrs.Collins, saying that her aunt Irina’s assistant was coming to get her so she could stay the night at her aunt’s place. It had happened before, and everyone knew Irina’s assistant never got out of the car to chitchat.

After getting a huge plate of cookies, hugs, and being made to promise she would text Aggie to let her know she got to her aunt’s alright, she ran out to the car. There was no driver, just a digital illusion to fool traffic cameras and passers-by. It was remote controlled and AI-assisted, and would bring Missy back to the Headquarters for Irina’s team.

When the first super heros to become parents, realized regular babysitting was out of the question, Irina had turned one area into a daycare/slumber party zone/school for the super heroes’ kids. Missy had spent a lot of nights there, doing her homework, having dinner, playing with the other supers’ kids, working on various computers, and sometimes getting tutored by Irina herself. The mastermind behind the superheroes.

Once she was inside and the car moving, Missy pulled up the holograph style screen to talk to Irina. There appeared a Barbie-sized version of the petite genius that never failed to make Missy think of Princess Leia imploring Obi-wan because he was their only hope.

“Hello, Ms.Moreno.”

“Hey, Irina. Will it be just us, or are any of the other kids gonna be there?”

“For the moment, Ferdinand and Neela’s children are at their grandmother’s in L.A., Nikki’s girls are with their father in Canada, George and Oscar’s kids are Texas with their grandmother, and Floyd’s kids are in Washington with their mother. Tabitha’s son is here.”

“Okay. Can you let him know I have a bunch of cookies?”

Irina’s smile was soft. Missy was aware Irina did not smile very often, and rarely more than a small upturn of one side of her mouth, according to her papa’s observations and her own. She considered it a sign Irina really liked her, that she would smile enough to show teeth, when she was talking to Missy.

“I’ll let him know to have milk at the ready. Is there anything else?”

“Think my papa will be home before I wake up in the morning?”

“I don’t know, Ms.Moreno. Would you like me to alert you, if you are asleep when he returns?”

“No. He doesn’t like waking me up. But thank you.”

“You are most-welcome.”

The connection clicked off and Missy sighed. She missed her papa and worried way more than she liked to let on. Sure, he was a super hero who could literally be anywhere or leave anywhere, with a thought. He also wore tactical gear and was teamed with other super heroes who could do things like shoot lasers out of their eyes and pick up tanks like cans of tuna. She still worried.

The car brought her to the HQ quickly, and Missy stayed in the car as the freight elevator brought it down ten stories to the main level of the Hall of Heroes, as her papa’s new sidekick, Billy, liked to call it. Missy liked her papa’s new teammate. He was funny, nice, and he seemed to do a good job watching her papa’s back and listening to her papa in the field. He also made her papa laugh, which was a bonus for anyone he had to work with, in Missy’s estimations.

Once the car was stopped, her seatbelt fell back on it’s own and Missy got out with her huge load of cookies. She walked the short distance to the kitchen to find Deacon waiting for her. Deacon’s mother, Tabitha, was the one with the laser-eyes that could cut through almost anything.

Like his mom, he was very tall with an athletic build, but unlike his mom, he didn’t shoot lasers of any sort. He had super-strength, like his uncle, George. Missy had seen Deacon lift a hummer up in order for Tabitha to have access to some part she was installing and that had been when Deacon was nine. He was thirteen now.

“I got the milk ready.”, he said with a smile as he patted the stool next to him.

Missy handed him the huge platter of cookies with plastic wrap overtop them, then climbed up to sit next to him. Deacon had his late-father’s blond hair but Tabitha’s dark gray eyes, as well as a smile as wide as his shoulders.

“Is your mom working with my papa?”

Deacon shook his head, a cookie already in his mouth.

“Wonder what they’re working on, since Irina hasn’t mentioned anything?”

Deacon swallowed somewhat loudly as he shrugged.

“My mom doesn’t tell me much. I think she’s afraid I’ll worry. Not like a lack of info really stops me from worrying though, so I don’t get it.”

Missy could understand that.

“My papa tells me some, but I know he holds back a lot.”

“Well, he did train you to be practically Sherlock Holmes, observing and making educated guesses that are nearly always right, and even when they’re wrong, you’re pretty darn close.”

She shrugged, eating her own cookie.

“Ferdinand wants us kids to start training here at the HQ. Did your dad tell you?”

Missy shook her head. Her papa thought he was keeping it hidden from her, yet she knew Ferdinand and Nikki thought all the kids ought to be trained, and those who showed no super powers by the onset of puberty, ought to be scanned to see if they would ever have powers. If they didn’t, that they ought to be cut off from knowing about what all their parents did, as if a lack of super powers made them high security risks with big mouths.

“How does your mom feel about that?”, she asked Deacon.

Tabitha tended to fall in with George, Oscar, and Missy’s papa, when it came to how to handle and protect the group’s children.

“She thinks we all ought to be able to just be kids, as much as we can considering we get tutored by Irina while hanging out in our parents’ secret lair, keeping their secrets while they are off saving the world. She was on the phone with Oscar and George, and she told them that she thought if any of us wanted to be like them when we grew up, that could all wait until we actually were grown up.”

“That’s about how my papa feels about it, whenever any of them ask him about training us now, instead of waiting for us to make our own choices about it.”

For a while, they just ate a few more cookies and finished off their milk. Missy could tell Deacon was thinking and she knew that both of them were worrying. Granted, Missy also knew part of the reason her papa was considering retiring from being a super hero, was because he knew Missy was old enough to really understand the risks of his job. And, without her mom, she would be an orphan if her papa didn’t come back one of these times.

His fear of making her worry all the time and his fear of not-coming home, had made him truly consider ending his days as a super hero. Missy wasn’t sure how she felt about that. On the one hand, it would be amazing to have him home all the time and not have to worry every time he teleported off to work. On the other, however, it meant he was giving up his life’s work and he was nolonger out there saving lives. There would be people at risk because her papa was giving up his cape for her. Not that her papa actually ever wore a cape.

“Missy?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you ever think about just… being a normal person, when you grow up? Not being a super hero, just being like a doctor or a mechanic?”

She nodded.

“Sometimes. Do you?”

He nodded, his eyes on the one silver ring he wore on his middle finger. He fiddled with it whenever he was uncomfortable. His mom did the same thing with a ring she wore on her thumb.

“I know my super-strength means I really should join the team and make use of myself, but… I’m not sure I’m cut out to be a super hero. When I’m worrying about my mom, when she doesn’t come home at night, it makes me sick. I haven’t told her, I don’t want to upset her or make her feel bad. I… I can deal with it, but I don’t think I could handle being a super hero like our parents.”

“Part of me thinks it would be thrilling, and that I would enjoy it. Other times, I think about when my papa comes home all taped back together and limping, and yet he tries to take care of me since my mom isn’t there to help anymore, and I’m not so sure the thrill is worth the cost of it, you know?”

Deacon nodded, his hand moving over to give hers a squeeze.

“Besides, I don’t have super powers, so they probably wouldn’t let me join anyway.”

“If you wanna be on the team, they have to take you.”

“No they don’t.”

Deacon puffed up his chest, his eyebrows drawn together in the middle.

“No. They gotta. If they don’t, I’ll beat them up, starting with Ferdinand.”

Missy laughed, snorting as she thought of Deacon having Ferdinand by the ankles, just whipping him around like a wrestler with a chair.

“Come on, you could be like that woman from the TV show you like. What’s her name? The British lady who worked beside Captain America.”

“Agent Carter?”

“Yeah! Her. She didn’t have super powers, but she fought right beside Captain America and his commandos. She even started her own spy agency. If she can start her own spy agency, in the 40s, you can be a super hero who doesn’t have super powers.”

“She was a fictional character.”

“I’m sticking to it. If you want to be a super hero, you’ll be a super hero and no one is gonna stop Missy Munroe from doing whatever she decides she wants to do.”

Missy smiled at her friend’s pronouncement. As much as she thought about joining her papa’s team someday, she had truly figured as a powerless, normal human, that would be out of the question. Deacon’s argument, however, was making her reconsider.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Deacon woke Missy, shaking her and whispering her name loudly. She wanted to smack him and tell him to get going, but she knew the protocol. If something happened when the adults were away, the eldest two kids were supposed to look after the others. Deacon and Alexander were the two oldest kids, most of the time, so Missy sat up to look at her friend.

“What?”

“Alexander, James, and Ferdinand Junior just got here, and I overheard Irina saying that Solena, Rick, and Hank were coming soon, along with Amber and Helen. Christine, Frank, and Olivia are also coming, cause I heard the automated system prepping their room.”

“That’s all twelve of us.”

Deacon nodded, looking wide-eyed and stricken at the same time. Missy understood. There was a protocol to bring in all of them if there was a threat to the team that meant Irina needed to ‘circle the wagons’, and protect the super heroes’ children. All of Missy’s life, her papa had drilled that into her. If Irina called, or anyone on the team called, and told her that Irina was going to ‘circle the wagons’ that meant she couldn’t tell a soul what was going on, she just had to do whatever Irina said and Irina would protect her and the other kids.

“Have you heard anything else?”

Deacon shook his head. Missy reached, holding his hand. For as long as she could remember, Deacon had been one of her best friends. He was quieter than all the other kids and he was very patient, it made him easy to be friends with.

“They’ll be alright.”, she tried to reassure Deacon.

He nodded, though she could tell from his racing pulse and clammy hands that she wasn’t fooling him. They both knew how bad this was if Irina was bringing all twelve “children of super heroes” into the HQ to hunker down.

“Have my papa and Billy come back?”

“Not that I’ve overheard on the radio when I was in the kitchen.”

Missy nodded, moving to hug Deacon and lay her head on his shoulder. Deacon wrapped an arm around her back, his eyes still glued to the door as if waiting to see who would come tell them the bad news. She and Deacon would never tell their respective parents, or Deacon’s uncles, but both had nightmares and fears constantly, of the day Irina had to come tell them their super hero wasn’t coming home.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Marcus wanted to scream. He would not scream. He would not give these alien villains the satisfaction.

The object they were sent to check out had done something, it made him think of tractor beams and such from STAR TREK, hauling anything in that came within a certain radius. When Marcus tried to teleport out, his body was overrun with searing pain and he had been unable to escape the room he was in.

When Ferdinand and Neela tried to come to their aid, as Marcus and Billy had been unable to warn them off, they had met the same tractor-beam. Now, looking around, Marcus did a head count. Neela and Ferdinand were in cells across a wide hallway from Marcus and Billy’s cells. Tabitha, George, Oscar, and Floyd were also in cells down the hall a bit, and Nikki was being led back by two of the larger aliens.

The aliens looked human, except their eyelids closed horizontally and they appeared to have an extra clear lid below that also blinked. It was unsettling to say the least. Marcus looked Nikki over for any sign of injury. She seemed unharmed and was walking fine, without being shoved or limping.

The two aliens placed her in the cell for her, turned, and walked out without a glance at any of the team in their cells. The goons who came to retrieve them for their interrogations never spoke and did not waste any movement.

Once it was clear, Marcus came to the edge of his cell and looked over to Nikki. Touching the slightly vibrating vertical bars resulted in a very nasty electric shock for him, so Marcus couldn’t lean against them to get a better view. From what he could tell, each cell was customized to handle whichever person they placed inside. George couldn’t bend the bars of his, Tabitha’s lasers bounced back at her and cut a chunk off her armored suit.

“Nikki?”

“I’m alright, boss.”

“What did they ask you?”

“Nothing. They hooked me to a machine and talked to me about Helen and Amber, then they talked to me about their father, then about my parents, about you guys, and about my life before I became a super hero. No questions.”

She looked up, her blonde hair falling into her thin face.

“It was weird, I felt like they had some huge dossier on me, and were reading bits of it to me to see what kind of reaction they’d get. Like bullies taunting to get a rise out of someone.”

Neela nodded over in her cell.

“That’s exactly what it felt like. Being probed for a weakness or a button to push.”

Oscar let out a gasp, falling to the floor with a groan. George nearly slammed himself into the bars of his own cell, trying to get to his husband.

“Oz!”

Oscar raised a shaky hand, waving it slightly as he sat on his knees and other hand, seemingly cringing a bit from what Marcus could see. The man’s salt and pepper hair looked wilder than usual, and that was saying something.

“I can’t get much off of them when I’m in here, but… I can still read all of you. You all got the same treatment, except Marcus and myself. They aren’t sure how my mental shields will affect their reading equipment.”

Ferdinand, Neela, and Billy had seen Marcus when he was brought back from his second interrogation. He had been swaying on his feet and his jaw had hurt from clenching it. He got periodic electric shocks as he had been interrogated. Presumably, they were keeping him immobilized partly because he wouldn’t be able to concentrate enough to imagine where he was teleporting and partly because an electric shock going through his system was the equivalent of a paperweight on a thin stack of sheets. He was grounded.

“What’s the plan, boss?”, Floyd asked.

Floyd and Tabitha had been the first on the team, to work with Marcus. Ferdinand and Neela came a bit later, then everyone else had started being pulled in by Irina.

“We keep observing, we find their weak spots. Also, we shouldn’t assume they aren’t observing us at all times. We try not to talk too much.”

Everyone nodded. Tabitha looked up, getting a better angle to Marcus and she nudged her chin towards his hands. He looked down to her right hand. She Signed using ASL letters, instead of words. Marcus followed.

She asked if he thought Irina had Circled the Wagons. He winked once with his left eye as a ‘yes’. She Signed to ask if he thought the kids would be targeted cause of their powers and their connections to their parents. He winked left again. Tabitha sank back in a plastic-looking chair in her cell with a deep sigh.

Marcus was aware that these guys seemed to have some sort of mind-reading abilities with their machines. However, he believed that either they used the machines as a smoke screen for fooling the team into thinking the aliens couldn’t read their minds when they were outside the machines, or they truly could not accurately read them without the machines being actively hooked into the team members. Marcus was leaning towards the latter.

To his limited ability to look around the room when he first was brought in and when he was half-delirious as he was shoved out, it reminded him a little of a lie detector test room. Contacts placed to monitor the heart, breathing, sweating, eye movement, and possibly hormonal shifts. He further assumed, from what he had observed, that the customizations of their cells also meant that whatever was reading their thoughts or simply their physical responses, could not work effectively within the cells.

Each of them, when going into the interrogation room, had noticed some countering to their abilities. Something to keep them held in check, unable to use their particular super power to fight, escape, or make the alien’s lives difficult. Floyd had been tied down quite well as had George, the two who were more of a physical threat if they had any maneuverability.

Tabitha had gotten a band placed on her head that she said she knew she shouldn’t use her lasers while wearing. Oscar had a metal disc attached to each temple while still in his cell, and claimed they made his telepathy so sluggish and unresponsive that it was mostly useless. Ferdinand and Neela both had handcuffs put on that both said they couldn’t even start a shift once the metal had made contact with their skin, so they couldn’t become their bird or cat-forms.

Billy was still wearing a collar that seemed to have a similar effect on his ability to turn into rock. Nikki didn’t appear to have anything on her, just as Marcus didn’t, though her cell had a couple little grenade-sized objects that trailed her movements and Marcus was willing to bet they were infrared or something that allowed them to track her even if she were to go invisible.

Floyd couldn’t fly away, Marcus couldn’t teleport them off, Billy couldn’t break out, and no one else’s abilities were accessible either. At this point, Marcus had to assume they were going to be there for a while until the aliens slipped up or the team found a weak spot in the alien ship’s ability to hold the team, and that Irina would keep the children as safe as humanly possible.

Marcus thought of Missy. She would have been baking cookies until things began to look dicey and Irina lost contact with he and Billy. Then she would have sent a car for Missy. Then, when she lost Ferdinand and Neela, she would have brought in all the kids, along with Floyd’s wife. It gave Marcus some comfort to know the kids were together, especially Missy with Deacon and James, as they were her best friends among the team’s kids.

What worried Marcus was that, if these aliens were so well prepared for his team, and knew so much about the intimate details of their lives, that nothing Irina would have at her disposal would save the kids if the aliens decided to go for Irina’s HQ. Then again, if they had been able to get into the HQ, they would not have needed to lay a trap for the team- unless, as Marcus feared, the real plan was to get them AND their kids, quickly and without any unnecessary complications.

Collecting even four of the team would have been enough to prompt Irina to gather all the kids, putting them all in one spot. The rest of the team would either come save their four comrades or go protect the children, either of which made it easy to collect them. When this was over, Marcus and Irina were going to have a conversation about splitting the children up for their protection rather than Circling the Wagons.

“If we do, Marcus. If.”, Oscar said quietly.

Focusing his mental energies at his teammate, he thought, “We will get out of here.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

Missy watched from the stairs up to the kitchen, as Irina read the reports and looked over the satellite images. Their parents and Billy had all disappeared after they came into contact with what had now been deemed ‘an alien vehicle’. Since Nikki had been taken, it had been complete radio silence from all members of her papa’s team. Missy sank further into the stairs.

Deacon and James both slipped down, sitting a step above and a step below her respectively, and waiting with her. The three of them had always been close and Missy was glad they were here with her. Looking over at each of them, she could see they were just as scared and worried as she was. James spoke first.

“Think they’ll escape?”

“Yes.”, Missy answered without pause.

Deacon let out a sigh.

“They’ll get out or they’ll die trying. Uncle George promised me once, they all agreed they would always come back to their families or die trying.”

James shook a little, hugging himself as he sat on his step. Missy reached, giving his shoulder a squeeze. Deacon moved, sitting close enough to mirror the action.

Irina walked over to them, a sad look in her eyes as she looked up at the three.

“Shouldn’t you all be in bed?”

“Under normal circumstances.”, Missy answered.

Irina nodded.

“I’ve nothing new to report. Why don’t the three of you go watch some TV and have something to eat? I’ll come up the moment there is something to report, good or bad. You’ve my word.”

Missy and Deacon nodded. James shook his head.

“I want to know where they are? Why haven’t they contacted us?”

Before Irina could say anything, an alarm blared on the control panel. Irina took a single look at it, then told Missy the words she, Deacon, James, and Alexander knew meant to run with the other kids.

“Fly the coup!”

The three of them took off like a shot for the rec room where the other kids were, except for Olivia, who was upstairs sleeping with her mom. Irina went for Olivia and Mrs.Murphy. Deacon grabbed Hank, Rick, and Frank, James grabbed Amber in one arm and took Helen’s hand, while Missy went to wave the rest of the kids to follow them out.

There was a back passage, not marked on anything in the base, on any file, nothing. Irina showed it to Deacon, Missy, and James, telling them they had to get the kids out this way if the headquarters were ever attacked or something went wrong, such as an earthquake bad enough to affect the integrity of the HQ. Missy put her hand on a panel that looked like a map of the floor they were on, and waited till the panel turned blue. A hidden panel slid open and Missy began ushering everyone through.

Deacon went first with his three, James went in the middle with Amber, Helen, and most of the other kids. Missy directed the rest to follow and she went last, turning back to put her hand on another spot that looked like a framed map. It turned blue after three seconds, making the panel slide back into place, covering their escape route from view.

James reminded the kids to walk, not run, and not to speak until he told them to. The group all made their way out, Alexander carrying Solena while Christine hovered nearby, her feet not quite touching the floor. Technically, Alexander was the eldest, though he was never that close to Missy or Deacon. The hall was long and winding, perfectly following the path of a pipeline above them that handled getting power to several large plants a few miles away.

Her papa had explained, when Missy asked about it, that the pipeline made it very hard for anyone to scan and find the tunnel. It also meant if anything happened around it, they would know because it would likely knock out the power lines above the tunnel. It also provided the perfect reason why nothing could be done above the tunnel to disturb it, because those companies wouldn’t let anything be done that might disrupt their pipeline.

After a long time of walking, they finally came out to the small outbuilding that covered the exit of the tunnel. It looked like a station for reading the power and condition of the pipeline and even had the right signage to make anyone think that. Alexander stopped them, moving to a crouched position, and change into his hawk form, leaving his clothing in a heap on the floor as he took off out a window James opened for him while Deacon grabbed the clothes.

Missy understood why Alexander opted to go as a bird. Everyone who might come after them, would be expecting a bunch of kids, instead of a bird native to the area. He gave three cries before landing next to the window. James let him back in and they all turned while he shifted back.

“What about Irina?”, James asked.

“She has a couple ways to get out, and she’s only got Mrs.Murphy and little Olivia with her, so it’s not like she needs an aircraft carrier to get them out. They can slip into a car and be gone.”

Missy agreed with Deacon.

“What about us?”, Alexander asked as he walked over, adjusting his shirt.

“We go to the mall.”

They all looked at her like she was insane. Alexander and James’s matching brown eyes were wide, Deacon’s gray eyes were wider still.

“You wanna go shopping, now?”, Alexander charged.

“No. But it’s almost Christmas, no one will think anything of a bunch of kids at the mall, during break from school. We can go there, sit in the food court, and figure out our next move. We won’t stand out, we know the layout, it’s public, and it isn’t that far to walk to from here, since none of us are wearing coats.”

“The next move was supposed to be calling our parents.”

Missy wanted to smack Alexander.

“I know that, but they aren’t going to answer right now. It’s up to us to make a plan. We’re going to the mall. Now.”

Alexander groused under his breath, though he did not argue as he scooped up Solena and had Christine on his bag for a piggyback ride. James and Deacon took their kids and brought up the rear as Alexander and Missy took point, the middle-aged kids walking between point and rear. Missy knew they would be at the mall shortly after it opened, and that most of the littler kids were in their PJs and untied shoes, but she also knew most people were too harried at this time of year to pay them much mind once they were in the food court.

Missy caught herself wishing her papa were there. He would know what to do, where to hide, how to escape. She took a deep breath and reminded herself of the hundreds of lessons. Ever since she could remember, her papa had taught her how to make the most of her mind, her five senses, and her intuition he said all humans were born with- that gut feeling about people and situations.

He taught her to track, how to hide in plain sight, how to make use of the things around her to build traps or be improvised weapons. He helped her learn not just his and her mom’s Spanish and English, but also conversational French, Mandarin, German, and Arabic, and was working on Latin with her. He claimed if she could speak enough in each of those, and knew her Latin, that there weren’t many places she could go where she couldn’t find someone to talk to.

When she had been very little, it had just been fun. As she got older, she began to understand why her papa was really doing all of this. He was aware his work, despite the secret identities and such, would always mean there was a risk of someone coming after Missy. And without her mom around, Missy would need to be more self-reliant to be safe, without her papa at her side. He was making sure his daughter, with no super powers, would be able to save herself.

Now, she glanced back at all the other kids and realized that none of them had been trained like her. None of them had her papa drilling them on martial arts, geography, languages, and reading a room. Deacon and James would always have her back, Alexander would end up falling in line with James, and all the others in their group would be looking to the four eldest to get them through this. They didn’t have Irina or their parents, they just had each other.

“We’re almost there.”, she announced as they came to a sign pointing the direction of the shopping district.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Missy had mostly used side and back streets, fearing the cameras on main streets for tracking and the likelihood of them catching more attention than they could afford to. Now, at the mall’s food court, the eleven of them sat. Alexander had a wad of cash from where he had just gotten paid for shoveling snow before Irina picked him up, so he bought some burgers, hot dogs, and drinks for the lot of them.

The food kept the littler kids busy and contented while the four older ones figured out the next steps. They knew their parents were MIA near an alien spaceship and Irina was in the wind with Mrs.Murphy and Olivia. Everything else was up in the air, for the most part.

“Do you think we could call Helen and Amber’s dad, have him come take the little ones? He is cleared, he knows who Nikki is and who all she worked with. Irina did all sorts of security at his place, to protect Helen and Amber there.”

Missy shook her head.

“If these guys knew enough to attack the HQ and to get all of our parents, they’ll know about him. That also means no grandparents, uncles, aunts, or cousins. We’ve only got a little over a hundred bucks collectively, no access to credit cards or safe way to use them if we had them. No car, we can’t afford to use any powers, and most of the kids are in their PJs. We can’t go to anyone’s home either.”

Deacon nudged her shoulder.

“What about if we take my mom’s new plane she was working on with uncle Oscar?”

Missy had forgotten it was operational again.

“It would hold all of us.”

“Don’t know where we’d go though, once we got on.”, Deacon added glumly.

Before she could suggest anything, Helen leapt into Alexander’s lap to hug his chest, crying quietly. Amber stood beside him, tugging his sleeve as she pointed to the TV screen up in a high corner of the food court. It was showing footage of the alien craft with a scrolling headline at the bottom, reporting that ALL of the super hero team known as Alpha Team, had disappeared while investigating the ship.

The four of them looked at each other while Alexander held Helen and Amber, trying to comfort them. The other little kids were all eating, talking, and were oblivious to the TV so high up. Missy had an idea. A mad, crazy idea.

“We take your mom’s plane and we go visit this alien ship, but we’re not going to get close enough to engage the tractor beam this thing’s got, and we set her down someplace close by. We can leave Christina at the helm, since your mom has been giving her some flying lessons and half the stuff on there’s automated anyway. The four of us get in, find our parents, and get them out.”

“You want us, just the four of us, to go in and get our parents?”, James asked in disbelief.

Alexander shook his head.

“We’re supposed to look after the little ones.”

“Fine, you stay and look after the little ones. James, Deacon, and I can go in. Deacon is strong enough to handle threats I can’t deal with, James can always sneak around in his horse-form, if we need him to. We’ll get in and get them out. We might only need to get one of our parents loose, and they can rescue everyone else.”

Deacon sighed.

“We will be going in blind. We don’t know what’s inside or if we can even get inside, without alerting the aliens and having them on guard.”

“True, but they won’t be expecting us. They think we’ll all hide, go to ground. They won’t at all expect a bunch of kids to take the fight to them. There are replacements for your mom’s armor, as well as my papa’s tactical gear and Floyd’s light armor he goes for. You and Alexander can fit into my papa and Floyd’s stuff easily enough, we can probably fix your mom and their stuff to fit James and I.”

Alexander sighed.

“Fine.”

James nodded. Deacon turned to look at all the little kids before turning back to Missy.

“What happens if we don’t come back out after a while?”

“Christine flies the plane to that army base Irina’s friend runs. The kids will get swarmed, but Irina’s friend will make sure they are safe until this gets sorted out… one way or another.”

Deacon noded, then turned to Alexander and James. Both seemed to understand his unspoken message. He agreed with Missy.

“Alright, once the kids are done eating and have used the bathrooms, we’ll go get the plane. Where’d your mom leave it, Deac?”

“She gave me the spare key. If we go out to the abandoned lot a few blocks from here, I can call it to us. It’ll probably get there the same time we do, if I hit the button as we’re leaving here.”

Alexander nodded.

“Okay. We’ll take the jet, Christine can fly them out if this goes to hell, and we can try Floyd, Tabitha, and Marcus’s spare stuff to see what we can use. First, we let the little kids finish their breakfast. That way they’ll sleep through most of the flight and we won’t have to fuss with them.”

Alexander had been the designated babysitter for as long as Missy could remember. He looked like a wall of muscle but under it, he was a big softy who loved kids and didn’t like conflict. And, like the hawk he turned into, he didn’t miss much.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Deacon sat at the helm of his mom’s experimental plane she and Irina had been working on for two years. It felt good there, familiar. Looking over to his copilot seat, he found Missy working on a bit of her papa’s tactical gear. It was a vest of sorts, and she was trying to get it adjusted enough to fit her thinner, shorter frame. Alexander had already gotten into some of the gear for his own dad, that he found in he back. A helmet, chest plate, and gauntlet type armor, James was outfitted in some of Tabitha’s spare gear since at 12 he was similar in chest size though shorter, and Deacon was wearing a combo of one of Floyd’s chest plates and helmets, with a pair of his mom’s arm bands she wore that had shields that came out of them, though he had safety pins holding them together since his arms were thicker than his mom’s.

“How’s it coming?”

Missy growled a little. Sitting in the co-pilot chair, she looked so much smaller than she usually did. Deacon supposed it was her big personality that made them all forget how little she actually was, physically. Her papa wasn’t the biggest guy on the team, yet he lead it without anyone questioning him. It must have been genetic.

“Almost got it. Just trying to figure out this back piece a little better so it doesn’t ride up. It needs to stay in place to work, and when it rides up, I can’t move my shoulders.”

“When we get in there, will you do something for me?”

She looked up at him, her hands stilling on her papa’s vest.

“What?”

“Stay behind me.”

“What?”

“My armor has shields, your papa’s doesn’t. Alexander can shift and fly away real quick, so can James. Not to mention, the armor they each got fits them better than your papa’s fits you.”

“And all three of you have super powers.”

“No, all three of us are better able to protect ourselves with our armor. You can’t wear any of my mom’s, or Floyd’s, and there wasn’t any more of Ferdinand’s left. All that was left, that fit you at all, was your papa’s tactical vest, his knife rig, and his night vision goggles. They won’t protect you if someone starts shooting things at you.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. I wasn’t being mean or trying to make you feel bad about being normal. I don’t want to have to tell your papa we let you get killed cause we weren’t watching your back.”

She looked away, her hands slowly moving to resume work on her papa’s vest.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright.”

“Alexander and Ferdinand get on me so much about my lack of super powers, and Nikki has suggested the kids without powers be cut out of the loop about stuff once we’re teenagers. I thought maybe you agreed with them.”

“Not likely. No offense, but your papa and my uncle Oscar don’t exactly have powers that make them invulnerable in a fight. Your papa’s gives him stealth, Oscar’s gives him an edge of planning. Yet they go out every day and fight bad guys. So what if you don’t have powers? You’re just as smart as your papa, and Irina doesn’t have super powers, but she’s the scariest person I know. If you wanna be a super hero like our parents, you’ve got my vote.”

“Thanks.”

She flipped her papa’s vest, cinching up a couple of the straps and trying it on. Deacon spared her a glance to see how she was progressing with it. The vest finally fit her well enough that it didn’t restrict her shoulders or hips, that way she could run or fight if she had to.

“You sure about this?”

“Not entirely, but don’t tell Alexander or James.”

“I won’t.”

“Good. They’d turn back.”

“I know.”

Missy moved over, checking Deacon’s armor again and using a pair of show strings she had found somewhere, to held tie the one part of the chest plate more securely.

“You’ll stay behind me though, right? At least while we’re going through, trying to find our parents?”

Missy nodded.

“It makes sense. Like you said, the gauntlets have shields that come up, and your armor is better than my vest, and I don’t have a helmet at all.”

He nodded.

“We’ll be at the parking site in about ten minutes, if you wanna go check Alexander and James.”

“Good idea.”

She patted his shoulder before leaving, reminding him of the hundreds of times he’d seen Floyd, Marcus, and his mom do the same with each other as they passed by. The three of them had been super tight. The original team Irina brought in to fight evil-doers everywhere. Marcus was the field leader, teleporting in and out around the fights to move bombs, fight guys, rescue people, and help whoever was on the scene, while Floyd would fly Tabitha around and she would shoot stuff with her laser vision, and she’d cover him while he flew people or things around.

His mom had told him so many stories, when he was little, about the early days when it had just been the three of them. The bird, the laser, and the boss. Irina’s dream team. Then, the others started joining, Tabitha got married and had Deacon, Floyd got married, Marcus got married, then Floyd and Marcus had their kids, and in a six month period, Marcus’s wife and Deacon’s dad had died in accidents.

Deacon’s dad had been driving he and Deacon home from visiting his grandparents. They hit some ice and the car started to spin. His dad hadn’t been a super hero, he had no powers to save them. He did think quickly enough to turn the wheel to change the spin of the car. They slammed driver’s side first, into a telephone pole.

All Deacon could remember was falling asleep in the back seat while his dad had been singing along to an old country song. Deacon had been warm and comfortable, with a belly full of cookies from his grandmother. When he woke up, he was cold, it was dark, and no matter how he cried out, his dad didn’t answer and he couldn’t get out of his seatbelt. Then, he had been in the infirmary at the HQ, with Irina looking at a clipboard and his mom holding his hand.

His mom and Marcus used to take turns going out into the field, for about a year, the other staying with Deacon and Missy. They never let he and Missy be without one of them, unless they were in school. Irina and the others made it work. Especially Floyd and Mrs.Murphy.

“Everyone’s ready.”, Missy said as she slid into the co-pilot’s seat again.

“Good. We’re almost there.”

“You’ll land, the four of us will head out, and over the hill to see what we can see, and Christine will wait here with the others. If we don’t come back in an hour, she is to fly them to safety with Irina’s friend.”

“I pre-programmed the controls while you were getting Alexander into his gear. I’ll set the timer when we land. Sixty minutes without me typing the password, and it will give her a two-minute warning before that so she can make sure everyone is buckled in, and this plane will take off and go where I said to go, without her having to do anything. It will also send an encoded message to Irina’s pal, Colonel Khan, to let her know the kids are coming and that this is an SOS, FUBAR kind of situation.”

“Good. Won’t let Christine freeze or the kids fight about what happens next.”

“You realize we’re all talking about them like we’re adults?”

“We’re big kids. They’re little kids. We promised we’d look after them, if we ever had to, so we’re just doing like we promised.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

In no time, they had landed and were getting ready to go in. Alexander delayed a moment, to remind Christine to lock the door, letting no one in or out except their parents or the four of them, and only if they gave the safe word. He made sure she locked up behind them before joining Missy, Deacon, and James at the top of the hill.

“We’re all set.”, he said as he jogged up to meet them.

“Alright. Let’s roll.”, Missy said as she turned to face the egg-shaped alien craft.

Deacon took point just ahead of Missy, James moved to rear-right, Alexander to rear-left forming a triangle around Missy. That hadn’t been planned but it seemed they all understood with her lesser armor and her being their team leader, it was important they keep her protected.

They were able to keep to the trees and make progress towards the alien craft, without encountering any traps, sentries, or other impediments. It made Missy more nervous than she cared to admit. These guys were either so cocky as to think they didn’t need to protect themselves, or it never occurred to them that anyone would try a ground assault with small teams so their security was looking for fighter jets and the like. Missy really hoped it was the latter, and not the former.

She signaled for them to move a bit to the left to get behind a particularly thick tree with some shrubbery near it. It could shield them from view and let Missy get a once-over on this alien craft. The four of them huddled and watched.

A door slid open as three aliens left to make their rounds, and it stayed open the whole time they were walking. Missy watched as the three aliens, who looked perfectly human at a distance but with Floyd’s helmet let Deacon see the dudes’ eyes “weren’t right” and Missy could tell they walked like there was an extra joint in their long legs compared to a human’s.

“We rush the door and slip in. On three.”

The four of them moved, ready to run.

“One.”

Missy let out a breath.

“Two.”

She breathed in.

“Three!”

The four of them took of like they had been blasted from canons, rushing down the hill towards the egg-shaped ship. Gravity aided their speed as they stormed the egg. They got in just as the door slid shut behind them.

The four looked around, now that they were inside. Everything looked as clean and shiny as new silverware, and much the same color as polished spoons. Right where they stood, it was all lit but up the three halls just beyond, were all darkened. When James took a step to right to look down the hall in that direction, the lights in that hall began to warm and brighten.

“Motion sensing.”, Missy answered his unasked question.

Deacon nodded.

“Looks like the halls to our right and left might be a circle going all the way around, this one here might just cut right across.”

“Yeah.”, Deacon agreed, “But do you think we should sweep clockwise, or cut down the middle?”

Missy thought about it. Down the middle was shorter, yet she figured walking the outside edge meant they would see more. She hated to break up their team, yet she thought that might be their best option, as they only had 43 minutes left before the plane would take off without them.

“Alexander and James, the two of you should walk the outside.”, she reached and left a small chalk mark on the bottom right edge of the door they had come in through.

“If you get back here, and we aren’t waiting, come down the center. Deacon and I will take the center. If we don’t find our parents before we run out of hall, we’ll double back. If you two aren’t here, we’ll go counter-clockwise and come looking for you.”

James shook his head.

“I don’t like it, we should stay together.”

Alexander put a big hand on his little brother’s shoulder.

“She’s right, Jimmy. We oughtta take the long way around, see what we can see, and if we spot our parents.”

“What if we spot them?”, James asked.

Missy thought about it.”

“Double back if you find our parents, we’ll do the same, that way all four of us can go in to get them.”

Everyone nodded in agreement, then James and Alexander headed down the left hallway. James did not look happy or confident about the plan. Alexander looked determined.

Deacon turned to Missy, reminding her, “Stay behind me.”

She nodded, letting him walk off a couple steps before following him, though staying a little to his right. He was left-handed, and she was right-handed, so it made sense to stay off each other’s dominant sides, in case they had to defend themselves.

They walked for a long while, seemingly too far for the size of the craft from the outside, and the platform seemed vaguely slanted as if they were walking slightly downhill. From the look on Deacon’s face, he had not missed that either. The lights came on as they moved, turning off not far behind them in an unsettling effect of being under a spotlight.

“You think the aliens are tracking us?”, Deacon whispered.

“Possibly.”

“If we see one, there’s nowhere to hide.”

“Yeah.”

Deacon reached, holding her hand.

“We’ll find them.”

Missy didn’t need clarification to his meaning. She gave his hand a squeeze and kept her eyes peeled.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Marcus hissed as another wave of electrical shocks rolled through his body. He had been strapped to the chair for at least an hour by his accounting, with these aliens rattling off names, places, dates, and other factoids. Then, a woman had come in. Beautiful, looking eerily similar to his late wife, and speaking to him in a calm, soft tone.

This woman, whom he had decided to nickname Devil, spoke in fuller, clearer sentences and with a slight accent he could not place. Her full lips and dark eyes were so much like his Elaina. It did not take long for him to figure out she could read his mind almost as well as Oscar.

“Tell me about your daughter.”

“No.”

Another set of shocks.

“What is her power?”

“None of your damn business.”

More shocks. Marcus groaned involuntarily as the shocks made his tired, abused muscles spasm again. Devil trailed a long, well-manicured nail his chest, barely detectable through his sweat-socked Tshirt. She leaned closer, her scent of lavender and vanilla a clear attempt to make him feel more comfortable with her. A balm against his poor treatment.

“Just tell me a little about her. Does she have a nickname? A favorite toy?”

She leaned closer, her pale brown eyes focusing on Marcus’s eyes in a way that made him feel compelled to tell her whatever she wanted to know. He forced himself to fall back on things he learned from Oscar. He thought about throwing up, trash cans in the summer, the smell of roadkill. Anything unpleasant that wasn’t personal to Marcus.

The Devil recoiled, gagging a bit. The two goons moved in, looking ready to pummel Marcus. The Devil waved them off as she coughed, trying to control her breathing.

When she stood straight, she put her freaky Stepford Wives smile back on as she purred to Marcus.

“That was not very nice, Marcus. You could be so sweet, why won’t you tell me something sweet? Tell me how lovely you think I am.”

He wanted to spit in her face. Lovely was his word for Elaina. They had gotten enough from him to know that he didn’t tend towards beautiful or pretty, but had called her lovely.

“Marcus Moreno. Captain of the Alpha Team. April one, 1975.”

“Oh come now, Marcus. You can be sweeter than that.”

“Marcus Moreno. Captain of the Alpha Team. April one, 1975.”

She sighed.

“Oh well, perhaps your meat needs more tenderizing.”

The electrical shocks restarted as she strode out of the room. Marcus fought to control his thoughts. He thought about doing paperwork, taking a long shower, cleaning the gutters, and putting gas in the car. He would not allow himself to think about his team or his girl. Not here. Not where his thoughts were a weapon aimed at everyone he cared about.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Missy looked all around them. It seemed like walking in the middle of a large, empty space between sky scrapers. She walked along the rope-bridge style middle hall with Deacon, looking all around while Deacon led the way. They were coming near the end and had not seen their parents or come across an alien on their level. When they would see the lights coming on a level above or below, they would freeze in place. Their light would shut off to put them in almost pitch blackness while the aliens passed.

Once more, she checked her watch. They had 27 minutes left before Christine and the others would fly off. Even if they left right now, it would take them too long to get back. Missy figured that was just as well. The littler kids did not need to be closer than they already were, to danger.

As she was about to alert Deacon to a light coming from quite aways behind them, she realized she knew the gaits of the two people heading for them. Alexander and James. She tugged Deacon’s arm and pointed.

“They found our parents.”

Deacon spun around and followed her to meet Alexander and James. James barely waited for them to be close enough before he started to whisper excitedly.

“We found them! They aren’t that far in. Come on! Come on!”

He took off, Alexander ushering Missy and Deacon to follow, while he brought up the rear. Deacon stayed just ahead of Missy with Alexander on their six. The four of them took off, as quickly as they dared, to get back to their parents.

James led them back to the entry point, then turned right to head back up into the tunnel. Missy could now sense that it also moved slightly upward, and they were in more of a tube-style hallway than the catwalk ramp-style walkway she and Deacon had encountered at the center. The sameness of every foot of the hall made her uneasy. Ever since walking in, the hairs at the back of her neck had been standing straight up.

They finally came to the 6th opening and James turned right, heading down aways. When he stopped, he gestured for Missy and Deacon to stand by him and look carefully. Another catwalk led over to an office type area, but below the office they could see where their parents were being held. Floyd, George, Nikki, and Neela were visible from where the kids stood peering down.

Missy looked around. She couldn’t see the rest of their parents or a doorway into where their parents were. Below them, a couple aliens stood like statues. Missy gestured for them to fall back into the main hallway.

Back in the main hall, they whispered as they planned.

“If we walk quietly, they might not notice us. We can get into that office and we’ll get down to our parents. Alexander, can you watch the door once we get in there?”

He nodded.

“Deacon can pass you and me down, then follow.”, James added.

“Good. Alright. Let’s go.”

They went one at a time, starting with Deacon, going across the catwalk. They moved quiet and careful, not making any noise or doing anything to draw attention to themselves. Missy came second, followed by James, then Alexander.

Once they were inside the little office, they realized a new issue. The only ways to get to their parents were either the locked doorway or the little tube that seemed to vent air, that passed over the office and the area where their parents were being held. They could not get through the locked door and the little pipe had a metal grate like covering.

“We can’t fit in there.”, Alexander said.

“You three can’t.”, Missy corrected.

“No way.”, James cut in. “You aren’t going in there alone.”

Deacon looked at it, then Missy, and back to the grate.

“I can get that cover off, I think.”

“Do it.”

Deacon went over, grabbing the bars and pulling for all he was worth. He was able to get them all off, or pulled back to open the pipe up. Missy came over, looking around.

“It wasn’t actually that hard. You might be able to kick out anything like this from the inside, if there’s another covering like this. If not, try this.”

He handed her a small tool out of the little bag he had brought with him.

“Functions a lot like my mom’s super powers. It’ll cut through a lot of stuff, including practically every metal on earth. Try cutting the bars, then kick them.”

She nodded.

“Help me up, I’ll crawl feet-first, so I don’t have to try to turn around in there.”

“Good thinking.”, Deacon said as he bent to pick her up. The grate was too high for her to reach let alone crawl up into, feet-first. Once she was in, Deacon held her hand to get her to look at him.

“What?”

“Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

Missy turned onto her knees and hands, not full able to sit on them but able enough to be able to scoot herself life a worm, backwards towards the next opening. When she arrived at the next opening, it was like the one she came in, dropping from the side instead of the bottom of the tube she had crawled through.

Missy crawled slightly passed the opening, till she could reach it with her hands. Carefully, she cut the top, side, and bottom connections of the grate. Then, she put the tool away in her hip pocket and scooted forward till her knees were even with the grate. Next, she turned on her side so she could bend her knees with her back to the grate, pressing her hands against the opposite wall to give herself some stability, she kicked backwards with her left foot. Once, twice, three times before the grate fell free with a soft clatter as it hit the ground.

At first, she had to wait a minute for the cut bars to cool. Once they were cool, Missy moved, letting herself slip out till she was holding for dear life with everything from the ribcage down hanging free. She took two quick breaths, then let herself drop. She rolled as she landed, coming up like a cat onto her feet with her hands up, ready to defend herself. Instead she was in what looked like a control room.

Quickly, she moved over to try to take stock of the control panel. It seemed simple enough. Buttons and levers, with some screens showing footage of the prisoners, especially Nikki. Missy looked, calculated, and made a guess. Pushing a button, the door between her and the guys swung open. Deacon and James ran in with her.

“Get Alexander, tell him we need him here.”

James rushed off for his brother to relay the message. Alexander came in and Missy pointed at the control panel.

“I think these buttons are for where our parents are. Think you can try to get them out, and we’ll go down to help them?”

“Sure. Any guess which one opens the door to let them out of the chamber their cells are in?”

Missy pointed to the one that looked like it had a few fingerprints on it.

“Seems like they push that one more often.”

Deacon and James followed her through the door to their parents, taking the three steps up into the level their parents were on. Running right for Tabitha’s cell, Deacon was off, and James rushed stand in front of the cells holding his parents. Missy ran through, not-seeing her papa, but Alexander was already working to get the cell doors open.

“What are you doing here?”, Floyd gasped as he saw them, followed by a chorus of everyone wanting to know why Missy, Deacon, and James were there, and where the rest of the kids were.

“We came to get you.”, Deacon started.

“Alexander is in the control room below, almost everyone else is heading off to Khan’s place and Olivia is with her mom and Irina.”, James added.

“Where’s my papa?”, Missy asked Billy, as she was cutting a collar off his neck with the tool Deacon had passed her.

“They took him a while ago, haven’t brought him back yet. I think cause he’s the boss, they’ve focused more on him.”

“More on him? What does that mean?”, Deacon asked.

“They’ve interrogated us, and it was uncomfortable, but painless for most of us.”, his mother reassured him.

Oscar looked at Missy and nodded, confirming to her that her papa was one of those who hadn’t been so fortunate. Before anyone could stop her, Missy took off. She needed to find her papa. Billy took off behind her, waving for everyone else to go ahead and get out.

As Missy came around a corner, she met a door. She couldn’t find a way to bypass it and growled in frustration. There was no keypad, no scan panel, no duct work to crawl through.

“I got this. Stand back.”

She looked to see Billy turning into the giant, organic rock that earned him his code name. Running at top speed, he left dents in the flooring and smashed through the doorway. Missy followed behind him, running, as Billy smashed doors. They would get her papa, rejoin the others, and get the heck out of Dodge.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Marcus watched as the little guy, who seemed younger and slighter than the goons who brought Marcus in, worked to undo most of the tethers, monitors, and straps holding Marcus to the chair. Being that he was seated more like a chair at a dental office than a desk chair or an operating table, he knew he had a little more power for his angles than if he were flat or fully seated.

When the slighter alien moved to stretch across Marcus to undo a strap, Marcus snatched the slighter man’s tie to yank him forward. The slighter man had what looked enough like a gun for Marcus to guess it’s use, so Marcus pulled it from the alien’s belt and leveled it at the slighter man’s neck.

“He’s going to let me off here, then you two are going to let me walk out, or I start pulling the trigger.”

The two backed away while the slighter one struggled, laid out across Marcus’s lap. Marcus growled closer to the ear of the slighter alien.

“When I loosen my hold, you’ll untie me. Got it?”

The alien nodded hurriedly. Marcus gave the slighter alien some slack so the alien could sit up and undo the bindings. It took the shaky-fingered alien very little time, though he soon had Marcus free enough that Marcus could defend himself if need be. Once the slighter alien had finished with the bindings, Marcus hopped up.

Everything hurt and his vision swam briefly before he had the alien weapon back the neck of the slighter fellow. All three aliens appeared in some amount of distress at the situation. _Good_ , Marcus thought.

“Alright, I’m going to leave, but first, I need to make sure you don’t follow me.”

He gestured and gave orders. The two goons came over to the table and were hooked to the electrodes that soon started giving them quick, intermitted-strength shocks. The slighter alien, Marcus tied up on the spot Marcus had just vacated. Once they were handled, Marcus left the room.

He came into a hallway where everything looked the same. His knees trembled as the hall seemed to drift. Marcus fell into the wall, rubbing a hand over his face. His team needed him. They needed to escape. They had to get to Irina and the children. Missy needed him.

Standing straight, he took a deep breath and forced a foot forward. He needed to go forward. One step at a time. One foot then the other.

The motion-sensing lights were bright against his eyes. Lack of sleep or food, poor treatment, and the energy required to keep his thoughts to himself, had added up to make him feel a sort of wrung out that he had never before felt. Not even the first time he went out with Floyd and Tabitha. Still, Marcus kept moving forward.

He had not gotten terribly far when he realized someone was moving towards him, causing the lights to come up. There was nowhere to run, no spot to hide in. Marcus went down on a knee, using both hands to hold up the alien weapon, his shoulder against a wall, and waiting. When the alien popped through the last doorway, Marcus would see just what this weapon was packing.

The door wrinkled and busted, a frightening form appearing instantly. Rocky and tall, with glowing orange eyes like lava. Rock Solid. Billy.

Marcus stood, his one hand against the wall to steady himself. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Billy had gotten free.

“Billy?”, Marcus rasped out.

“Papa!”

Looking past his partner, he saw Missy, in ill-fitted tactical gear, running at Marcus. Crouching back down, Missy slammed into his chest, her arms tightening like a vice around him. Marcus held her tightly to his chest, his eyes closing as he felt his little girl shaking in his arms.

“Aw, my baby girl.”

Cradling her close, her was so glad to see her. She was here. She was safe.

“How did you get here? Did they take you?”

“They came to the HQ and attacked it. Irina sent us all out, and she went to get Mrs.Murphy and Olivia. Deacon, James, Alexander, and I came out to get you all. Christine and everyone else are flying to safety in Tabitha’s plane.”

“The experimental one?”

He felt her nod. Moving back to look at his little girl’s face. Her eyes were wet and her chin crumpling a bit, and she was still shaking. Marcus wiped at her cheek with his thumb, cupping her cheek once the tear was erased.

“What’s wrong?”

“I thought I’d never see you again. I went into the cells and you weren’t there.”

Marcus tucked her back against his chest, letting out a small sigh.

“I’m so sorry, angel. I’m sorry.”

Billy tapped Marcus’s shoulder, reminding him they were still in the alien vessel.

“We gotta go, angel.”

Using his free hand, he held Missy’s, his other still wrapped around the alien weapon. Billy brought up the rear while Marcus jogged ahead, Missy in tow. They kept going till they caught up with Floyd and Tabitha.

“Come on, old man. We’re blowing this popsicle stand.”, Floyd teased.

The five of them hastened from the prison room and followed the others out. They had almost made it to the entry point when everyone seemed to halt. Missy tried to look but Marcus shoved her behind him with Billy protecting their backs, along with Tabitha, who was now wearing one of her gauntlets that her son must have brought for her.

Ahead, the Devil woman and two goons stood blocking the entrance. She was grinning at them, and for the first time, her real teeth showed. Sharp, shark-like teeth.

“Come now, Marcus, you know you’re Alpha Team is not going anywhere. Come along quietly and we will not harm the little ones.”

“Not gonna happen.”, Floyd said from the middle of the group.

Tabitha tugged Deacon towards the center of the group and Marcus guided Missy to stand next to him. Neela slid to put herself between her boys and the alien threat. Marcus, Tabitha, and Oscar all made eye contact and were forming a plan. They could all hear Oscar’s voice in their heads, giving the name of the move they were going to make.

Billy turned to tackle two aliens, George slammed into two others, while Tabitha cut a wide slice. Floyd took off in the air, firing shots while Marcus fired with the alien weapon in one hand, his other flinging his knives from his pack he’d taken from Missy. Ferdinand and Neela shielded the children and Oscar, Nikki grabbed one of the alien weapons and began firing as well.

When they were done, the Devil woman was the only alien still standing, and even she was bleeding orange blood from a wound to her arm that looked very much like it came from Tabitha’s eyes. From the look in her eyes, she was greatly unhappy. Marcus barely held back the urge to smile at her.

“I will not let you off this ship! We will turn you to our use and you will help us bring these filthy humans into line.”

“Like the man said, not happening.”

“I will not let you leave!”

Tabitha shot another blaster just over the Devil woman’s head.

“You came after our children. Step aside and get the hell off our planet, or so help me, I will dissect you like a cadaver.”

“You’re outnumbered, I’d suggest you let us leave, and then do like she said.”

The alien woman sneered at Marcus. Glancing at all of them, her goons laying injured or dead around her, and bleeding from a nasty wound, it seemed she realized she was in no place to take them on. She stepped aside, then slammed her hand against a small, barely perceptible panel on the wall and it felt like the oxygen was being sucked from the room by a mighty vacuum.

The team all gripped to whatever they could find to hold onto, all trying to hold their breaths or gasp for air. Marcus held Missy close to him and raised the alien pistol to fire into a spot where he could see a small chalk mark. He knew Missy must have placed it there when she and boys broke in.

Nikki followed suit, firing her alien pistol at the same spot. Tabitha aimed her eyes and kept a continuous beam on the spot. Billy and George rushed over and pounded at the door to dislodge it. Deacon moved to help them, beating at the wall. Neela punched the alien woman, knocking her free into the air to fall many stories down in the alien ship.

The wall became a hot orange, before Billy was able to bust a hole with his fist, allowing air to flow freely into the room. Everyone gasped and crawled, moving towards the opening. Billy, able to grasp the hot metal without damaging his hands, pulled back the pieces as best he could in order to make the opening big enough that none of them had to touch the hot metal to get out.

Floyd flew out first, holding one of the pistols he had taken off an alien, and covering everyone else as they came out. Neela and Nikki came out to flank Floyd, then Billy and George started handing the kids through the torn mess of an opening. Ferdinand, Oscar, and Marcus were next, with Billy coming out last. They were now out, away from their prison.

“Our plane was destroyed.”, Ferdinand said as they saw the wreckage near the alien ship.

Just as Marcus was about to comment that they were in for a long walk, four military helicopters appeared just outside of the tractor beam’s range. Oscar started grinning and dancing around happily beside George.

“It’s Irina! She’s here! She brought the cavalery!”

Marcus looked around at his team.

“I guess it’ll be a short walk then. Come on.”

Missy plastered herself to his side and Marcus held her tightly against his hip as they all walked up to the helicopters. He knew Irina would have weapons trained, probably some from fighter jets and snipers they couldn’t currently see or hear, to make sure the team got out safely. Irina left nothing to chance.

Ferdinand, Neela, Alexander, and James got into one helicopter with some military guys Marcus thought might have been British. George, Oscar, Nikki, and Floyd got into a second helicopter with American soldiers in it. Tabitha, Deacon, Billy, Missy, and Marcus got into the third, with Irina giving them a nod from the fourth. Irina’s helicopter had their six as they made their way home.

Marcus double-checked Missy’s seatbelt for the dozenth time. She reached her hand over, grasping his tightly as she smiled up at him. She was alive and well, he was alive, his team were all well and going home. Finally, he could breathe.

Tipping his head back, Marcus closed his eyes and for the first time since Irina called him out for this mission, he relaxed. His team were safe, the kids were alright, and they were heading home. He felt his daughter tighten her hold on his hand and he smiled. They would be home soon, and in time for Christmas.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Marcus heard Missy fussing in her room. Getting up, he felt Elaina stir. He had been gone for almost a week doing ‘super hero stuff’, and that had left Elaina on full time mama duty, with no backup, and she had just gone back to work two weeks ago from her maternity leave. Marcus leaned back over, kissing her forehead.

“Go back to sleep, I got this.”, he whispered in Spanish.

Elaina smiled at him sleepily.

“Thanks.”

It took him only a couple minutes to walk out of the room and next door to Missy’s crib. Artemis Marianna Moreno, light of his life, first born, and one of his two favorite girls in the world. Marcus flipped on the small lamp in the corner of her room that added a small yellow glow to the room rather than the bright light in the ceiling fan.

“What’s wrong, angel?”

Her little face was scrunched up and her eyes were wet, her hands balled up in tiny fists, her chubby legs kicking. She was precious even if she was costing he and her mama a bunch of sleep. Marcus scooped her up, bringing her against his chest and lightly bouncing her as he spoke quietly to her.

“Is it the diaper?”

He checked, she was dry and it didn’t smell. It hadn’t been long enough for a rash to come up, he figured from all the books he devoured from the moment Elaina told him the stick turned blue. Her temperature was normal and here was no other sign of distress. He figured she either needed a burp or she was just lonely.

“Come on, angel, what’s the matter? Got a mean burp hiding in there?”

She almost seemed to be trying to burrow into his chest. Marcus turned, giving her fuzzy little head a kiss. She was so sweet, and so tiny. Sometimes he worried he would crush her cause she was so tiny. Objectively, he knew that wasn’t possible. It did not stop him from worrying.

Marcus moved to the crib and held Artemis close as he rocked. He talked to her about nothing and everything. Work stuff, things he planned to do with the house, a playset he was planning for her in the back yard, the book he had just finished reading, how he met her mama. It seemed to be working, as she was quieting down and was less squirmy.

Deciding she still wasn’t quiet enough to put her down in her crib just yet, Marcus thought of a song. It was not a lullaby. Elaina was good with the lullabies. Marcus’s voice wasn’t made for sweet songs to babes in his arms.

He had always been a big FleetwoodMac fan, so he decided to pick one of their songs. He went for ‘Bleed to Love Her’. It might have seemed an odd choice to sing to a fussy baby at two in the morning, yet it was one he could sing quietly and without making dogs bark.

“Once again she steals away, then she reaches out to kiss me. And how she takes my breath away, pretendin’ that she don’t miss me. Oh woah woah, I would bleed to love her. Oh wow, woah, bleed to love her. And once again she calls to me, then she vanishes into thin air.”

He looked, seeing that Missy was falling off to sleep, unable to keep her eyes open, so he continued to sing.

“And how she takes my breath away, pretendin’ that she’s not there. Whoah, I would bleed to love her. Woah, woah bleed to love her. Woah, I would bleed to love her. Somebody’s got to see this through. All the world is laughing at you. Somebody’s got to sacrifice, if there’s hope it’s gonna turn out right. Woah, I would bleed to love her. Woah, bleed to love her. Whoah, I would bleed to love her.”

By the close of the song, Missy was sound asleep, making little spit bubbles on every third breath. He smiled, gently getting up as he hummed a little, and leading her over to her crib. Carefully, he laid her down, covering her up to her armpits, then kissing her little forehead.

“Goodnight, my super angel.”

Marcus switched the small lamp off and headed back to his bedroom, sliding in beside the very warm form that was his beloved wife. Elaina shifted a little till she was pressed against him. Marcus smiled, putting an arm around her middle and nestling his nose into the back of her neck. He loved her smell and her soft hair.

“Was she okay?”

“Just lonesome when she woke herself up.”

“How’d you get her back to sleep?”

“FleetwoodMac.”, he answered sleepily.

He felt her chuckle in his arms.

“You’re such a nerd.”

“I’m your nerd.”

“Yes. All mine.”, she said as she held his arms and scooted further back against him.

Marcus smiled. It was a memory he would think of, a few years later, as Elaina sent him to go check on Missy. She had come home from a playdate at Neela and Ferdinand’s and ran crying, out to her playset Marcus had built for her two summers ago. Elaina had worried about the turret on the one corner of the little club-house portion of the playset. Marcus explained every girl needed a place she could pretend to either be a princess waiting for her dragon so they could go for a ride, or to pretend to be a sea captain looking at wherever the wind may take her.

Now, he saw on the hardwood ladder going up to the main club house. Missy was holed up in her turret, still crying. Marcus didn’t know why, so he just asked. He always preferred the direct suite.

“Why are you crying?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Part of him thought it was her teeth. She had lost a couple baby teeth in the front and the adult ones weren’t sowing yet, so she had ‘holes’ in her smile. He thought her gap-toothed smile was adorable, though sadly his was not the only opinion that mattered to his little girl.

“If it made you cry, it’s important to me. Come on, what made my baby girl cry.”

“Ferdinand said I can’t join the team.”

“What?”

“Ferdinand said I can’t join the team unless I have a super power, and I don’t so I can’t join your team when I grow up.”

She turned her red, puffy face to him, tears still freely streaming down her cheeks. Marcus felt his blood boiling. Ferdinand’s elder two boys had shown signs of inheriting their parents’ ability to shapeshift into an animal form, while Missy was a year younger than their middle boy and had not shown any sign of any super ability.

Secretly, Marcus had been relieved his daughter had no abilities like he and his team had. It would mean she could have a safe, normal life. She wouldn’t feel pressured to join and to spend her adult life constantly endangering herself, always feeling responsible for the lives of dozens or hundreds of other people, nights spent walking the halls second guessing every action she had taken the previous day.

“Angel, look at me.”

She shook her head. Marcus used a quieter tone.

“Angel?”

She looked up at him and he made her a promise he hoped he would never have to worry about keeping.

“If you want to join my team someday, powers or not, you’ve got a spot. I promise you.”

“Really?”

“You’re smart, you are the kindest person, and I trust you. Couldn’t ask for more than that in a teammate.”

Missy rushed over, colliding with his chest. Marcus hugged her tightly, rocking her slightly. He loved this little girl more than he ever thought possible and he could not imagine willingly putting her in danger. Not that he ever doubted she would make a bad teammate, Marcus just wanted for her to never be in the positions his job had put him in over the years and would likely put him in the middle of for years to come.

“I love you, my super angel.”

“I love you too, papa.”

“Come on. Your mama’s holding dinner for us.”

He climbed down, then held out his arms for her. She giggled then jumped so he could catch her. He knew they wouldn’t be able to do this for much longer, she was getting so tall and long-legged. With Missy on his hip, he walked back to the house.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Marcus woke, looking out his window to see all the snow. He smiled. Missy would get her every-year wish, a white Christmas. The kid loved waking up to a blanket of frozen flakes glittering in the morning sun. He got up, throwing a robe on over his gray Tshirt and his Grinch PJ bottoms Missy had gotten him last year for Christmas, and heading down the hall.

He could already hear her giggling in the kitchen and he could hear the menu music from their DVD copy of HOW THE CRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS, the cartoon. Their living room looked like one of the Hallmark movies Elaina had been so fond of. The tree twinkling in one corner, Christmas movie on the TV, two mugs that looked like snowmen waiting on the coffee table, snow at the windows, garland and lights decorating every surface Missy could get them to stay on, while Missy was humming along in the kitchen.

Marcus went in to find her getting everything out for pancakes. It was their tradition. He made them each a short stack of chocolate chip pancakes and hot chocolate, then they would eat them in the living room while sitting on the floor and watching HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS. Afterwards, they would open presents.

“Hey Christmas angel.”

She turned, grinning at him.

“I got everything ready.”

“Good, let’s get to cooking!”

The cooking and hot chocolate making went by quickly, and they were soon sitting down for their breakfast with a movie. Missy hit PLAY as Marcus took his first sip of the hot chocolate. They enjoyed the movie, teasing and singing along in places, as they ate their pancakes.

A knock at the door made them both jump a little. Marcus got up and found a most unexpected sight. Irina. She wore a red business suit with a beautiful white crisp shirt and a green holly leaf pin on her lapel.

“Irina, what a pleasant surprise. Come on.”

She waved him off, then handed him a box with Missy’s name on it.

“I wanted to bring Missy’s present before I headed off to Greece.”

“Oh, young love.”, he teased.

Irina playfully rolled her eyes at his antics. She had recently started seeing someone, whom she had said very little about, and the person had invited her to travel with them during the holiday since neither of them had children, parents, or any other family they expected to share the holiday with. Marcus was happy for her.

“I hope you two have a really good time, and they give you a fantastic present.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that.”

She leaned in, giving him a hug.

“Take care and Merry Christmas.”

“You too, Irina.”

She waved as she walked off, heading for her car. Marcus watched till she got in, before heading back to Missy. She had paused the movie and was cleaning up their dirty plates to make a little pile over on the corner of the coffee table.

“Irina brought your Christmas present.”

“Where is she?”

“Off to Greece. Wanna open it?”

Missy nodded emphatically. Marcus brought the present over, wrapped in golden paper with a green ribbon. Missy turned, putting the present on the couch and carefully unwrapping it. Inside was a nice box with a note. Missy opened the note, make a perplexed face before she opened the box to reveal a suit that looked nearly identical to her papa’s tactical uniform when he was with the Alpha Team, except the one in the box also had a bright purple cape.

Her papa reached, taking the note and reading it. Missy could see his smirk as he finished the note from Irina. She informed Missy that she thought Missy had done a very good job of leading the Bravo Team in to rescue the Alpha Team, and invited Missy to join the team, “when you’re all grown up” and work beside her papa.

“Guess that means we better get ready for Team Bravo.”, her papa said as she smiled down at her.

Missy smiled all over herself and she pulled out the purple cape. She tied it on her shoulders and spun in front of her papa. Purple was her favorite color and the cape had a little shimmer to it almost like the snow outside.

“Look out world, here comes Super Missy!”

She laughed at her papa’s joke then rushed over to hug him. He hugged her, rubbing a hand up and down her back. She knew he didn’t really want her to be a super hero, as she overheard he and Tabitha talking it over about Missy and Deacon possibly joining the Alpha team. Neither of them really wanted their kids following their steps.

“Ready for the rest of the movie, then presents?”

“Actually, I think there was one present you might want ahead of the rest of the movie. I’ll go get it.”

Missy waited. She was aware her papa had sneaked something in for her last night with some help from Billy, yet neither of them would tell her a thing and had panicked when she walked into the hallway as they were moving a box into her papa’s room. Missy half-expected it to be a bike. She was getting too big for her current bike, though she had thought her papa would wait for her birthday in April, to make sure he didn’t get one just for her to outgrow it before she was able to ride it this summer.

“Close your eyes!”

Missy closed her eyes and put her hands over them as she waited. She could hear her papa walking in and there was a jingling, metallic noise before her papa settled onto the couch beside her.

“Alright, open them.”

Missy opened her eyes to see a fluffy, reddish brown puppy with big, soft brown eyes, a wagging little tail, and its pink tongue hanging out. It looked like a golden retriever, except the color and the shape of the ears, and was the size of a 5Ibs bag of sugar. Her papa let go of it and the puppy bounded over into Missy’s lap. She laughed as she rubbed the puppy’s ears and back, feeling it’s silky, soft fur.

“Billy picked her up for me yesterday. Her mama got rescued and had this puppy and her four brothers at the rescue place. When I saw her, I knew she needed to come home with me and be your puppy.”

“She’s so sweet!”

“Well, you two get acquainted and you think about a name. I’ll go get her bowls and some refills on the hot chocolate.

Missy hugged her puppy, already loving her. She had been wanting a dog for a while, ever since Aggie’s family got a rescued pitbull two years ago and Missy had fallen in love with her as she was rubbing the pittie’s belly.

Her papa came back in with a blue bowl of water and a purple one of food, setting them off to the side of the room on a towel, then he came to sit with Missy and the puppy on the coach and queued up the movie to continue playing as he threw an arm around Missy’s shoulders. She leaned, still rubbing the puppy’s neck and back, running her fingers through its soft, long hair.

“Any ideas on names?”

“Lady.”

Marcus smiled. LADY AND THE TRAMP had been one of Elaina and Missy’s favorite movies.

“Well little Lady, welcome to the family.”

She wagged her tail enthusiastically. Marcus chuckled as he turned back, watching the Grinch trying to adjust the size of the antlers on Max’s head.

“Halloween, you wanna dress Lady up as Max, and you can be Cindy Lou Who, and I’ll be the Grinch?”

Missy laughed, scrunching up her face as she shook her head. Lady made a noise, then collapsed dramatically in Missy’s lap before rolling over for a belly rub. Marcus smiled as he watched his girls, happily enjoying their Christmas morning. Life didn’t get much better than this.


End file.
